Sunday, May 03, 2009

Today our guest blogger is John R. Corrigan. John was born in Augusta, Maine, in 1970. Along with his wife and three young daughters, he lives at the Pomfret School in Pomfret, Connecticut, where he teaches Advanced Placement English and Mystery Literature, among other courses, and coaches hockey and golf.

The first Jack Austin novel, CUT SHOT (Sleeping Bear Press, 2001), earned excellent reviews (see "reviews"). In 2002, Corrigan signed with the University Press of New England, an honor that made him UPNE's first mystery novelist and produced SNAP HOOK (2004), CENTER CUT (2004), BAD LIE (2005), and OUT OF BOUNDS (2006). The Jack Austin series has been praised for accurately portraying the stresses associated with high-pressure athletics. John is currently at work on a new series featuring a female border patrol agent as protagonist.

Here's what John has to say about Being Between Contracts. I can relate!

Thanks to Debby Atkinson for not only reading my Jack Austin series but for asking me to contribute here.

I write this entry from an island known to authors as “between contracts.” It’s no beach resort.

I’ve found this tiny patch of land to be an unwelcoming place. It’s a place that I, like most writers, struggle to comprehend, a place where corporate consolidation leads to unemployed editors, a place where a manuscript lies unread on a desk that gets cleaned out on Friday only to be swept off that same desk by an editor who, on Monday, enters anew bringing different priorities. I’ve also found this island to be a place where I must constantly fight the currents of self-doubt while awaiting the call from my agent saying my new series has been sold.

The thing is, I rowed to this island myself. And I’m the one who chose to kick the boat adrift, when I walked away from a contract to write a sixth Jack Austin novel.

So why do that to myself? Why not write another book like the one Debby Atkinson enjoyed? After all, in this age of major publishing house layoffs and editors who are scared to take on a new series or sign a mid-list author, this is a major risk.

Let me begin with some back-story: I invented PGA Tour pro Jack Austin one morning in El Paso, Texas, back in 1995, during the second year of my MFA program. CUT SHOT came out in 2001 and was followed by four others. I was with a prestigious university press, but distribution was bad and sales weren’t where I wanted them and improving only slightly with each book, despite excellent and even starred reviews. After spending a decade with Jack Austin, I wanted something fresh. So while working on the fifth Jack Austin, OUT OF BOUNDS (2006), I decided to try something different. One morning, I wrote a scene and emailed it to my agent. He loved it. Once I met the deadline for OUT OF BOUNDS, my publisher offered a contract for a sixth Austin novel. I declined and went back to that scene.

It would be disingenuous to say I started a new series solely for artistic reasons. Before moving to Connecticut from Maine, I had an annual tradition of signing with Tess Gerritsen each fall at the Bangor, Maine, Borders. She once asked what my sales figures were. I told her.

“That’s good,” she said.

I reminded her that she was a New York Times best-seller. “How can you think that number is good?”

“Women buy fiction,” she said, “and you’re writing golf books. To make it worse, you’re writing tough-guy golf books. So you’re missing out on the majority of the fiction market. Those numbers are good—considering the small audience you’re writing for.”

To be perfectly honest, you and I both know that if my Jack Austin series was selling like Tess’s books it is highly unlikely that I’d be starting a new series. I rarely think of myself in artistic terms, and I’ve probably never called myself an “artist” publically before. However, I am a guy who loves words, who loses track of time when I’m looking for the right ones to fill blank pages with, a guy who is passionate about moving and cutting them until they sound and do exactly I’d hoped they would. And I constantly seek new challenges, new characters with different skills and different problems. A hundred and fifty pages into the new book, when a character said something I could have never foreseen, hinted at an act I’d never have predicted, I sat back, stared at the computer screen and thought, This is why I do it. This book owes me nothing more.

So what all of this talk of sales figures, my desire for better distribution, and my enjoyment of the writing process adds up to is a risk—a book written on spec. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written, so for better or worse, I’m willing to own my decision. I’m willing to step off that boat, turn, and kick it free. Now I stand firmly in a frightening place, facing restless natives and my own demons, waiting for the phone to ring.

I'll bet you every writer struggles with self-doubt, every artist for that matter.

John, sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do. If you had really wanted to write another novel in the series, you would have done so. Your hesitation to accept another contract is the proof. If you had accepted and not been fully committed to the project, your writing would have suffered, I'll bet. You probably did a very wise thing.

Yes, it would be wonderful to sell thousands of books and be successful enough to just do what we love, but you also must be true to yourself.

I'm in the same boat, sitting and waiting, and often wondering why I do it at all. When I get to the end of a novel, I have no idea whether it's good, bad or indifferent. And when you wind up waiting a long time to sell it, that gets to be pretty hard to bear.

Best of luck, and thanks for guesting (I hate that word, but it works in this case...)

It takes willpower and confidence to write so honestly about your experience being between books. Congrats for taking your self-doubt and turning it into a learning tool we young writers can identify with and benefit from.

Rick Blechta writes on Tuesdays

Barbara Fradkin writes on alternate Wednesdays

Sybil Johnson writes on Alternate Wednesdays

Donis Casey writes on alternate Thursdays

John Corrigan writes on alternate Thursdays

Charlotte Hinger writes on alternate Fridays

Frankie Bailey writes on Alternate Fridays

Vicki Delany writes on the second weekend of every month

Mario Acevedo writes on the 4th Saturday of each month

Aline Templeton

Aline Templeton lives in Edinburgh in a house with a balcony overlooking the beautiful city skyline. Her series featuring DI Marjory Fleming is set in beautiful Galloway, in South-west Scotland. alinetempleton.co.uk

Rick Blechta

Rick has two passions in life, mysteries and music, and his thrillers contain liberal doses of both. He has two upcoming releases, Roses for a Diva, his sequel to The Fallen One, for Dundurn Press, and for Orca’s Rapid Reads series, The Boom Room, a second book featuring detectives Pratt & Ellis. You can learn more about what he’s up to at www.rickblechta.com. From the musical side, Rick leads a classic soul band in Toronto. Check out SOULidifiedband.com. And lastly, being a former line cook with an interest in all things culinary, he has a blog dedicated to food: A Man for All Seasonings.

Barbara Fradkin

Barbara Fradkin is a retired psychologist with a fascination for how we turn bad. Her dark short stories haunt the Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, but she is best known for her award-winning series featuring the quixotic, exasperating Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green, published by Dundurn Press. The ninth book, The Whisper of Legends, was published in April 2013. Visit Barbara at barbarafradkin.com.

Sybil Johnson

Sybil Johnson’s love affair with reading began in kindergarten with “The Three Little Pigs.” Visits to the library introduced her to Encyclopedia Brown, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and a host of other characters. Fast forward to college where she continued reading while studying Computer Science. After a rewarding career in the computer industry, Sybil decided to try her hand at writing mysteries. Her short fiction has appeared in Mysterical-E and Spinetingler Magazine, among others. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in Southern California where she enjoys tole painting, studying ancient languages and spending time with friends and family. Find her at www.authorsybiljohnson.com.

Donis Casey

Donis is the author of six Alafair Tucker Mysteries. Her award-winning series, featuring the sleuthing mother of ten children, is set in Oklahoma during the booming 1910s. Donis is a former teacher, academic librarian, and entrepreneur. She lives in Tempe, AZ, with her husband, poet Donald Koozer. The latest Alafair Tucker novel, The Wrong Hill to Die On (Poisoned Pen Press, 2012), is available in paper or electronic format wherever books are sold. Readers can enjoy the first chapter of each book on her web site at www.doniscasey.com.

John R Corrigan

John R. Corrigan is D.A. Keeley, author of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent Peyton Cote series, which is set along the Maine-Canada border. Bitter Crossing (summer 2014) will be the first of at least three novels in the series. Born in Augusta, Maine, he lives with his wife and three daughters at Northfield Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts, where he is English department chair, a teacher, a hockey coach, and may very well be the only mystery writer in North America who also serves as a dorm parent to 50 teenage girls. A Mainer through and through, he tries to get to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, as often as possible. You can see what he's up to by visiting www.amazon.com/author/DAKeeley or dakeeleyauthor.blogspot.com or on Twitter (@DAKeeleyAuthor).

Charlotte Hinger

Charlotte Hinger is a novelist and Western Kansas historian. Convinced that mystery writing and historical investigation go hand in hand, she now applies her MA in history to academic articles and her depraved imagination to the Lottie Albright series for Poisoned Pen Press. charlottehinger.com

Frankie Bailey

Frankie Y. Bailey is a criminal justice professor who focuses on crime, history, and American culture. Her current project is a book about dress, appearance, and criminal justice. Her mystery series featuring crime historian Lizzie Stuart is set mainly in the South. Her near-future police procedural series featuring Detective Hannah McCabe is set in Albany, New York. Visit Frankie at frankieybailey.com.

Vicki Delany/Eva Gates

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers. She is the author of more than 25 books, including the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year Round Christmas cozy series, the Constable Molly Smith books, standalone novels of suspense, the Klondike Gold Rush series, and novellas for adult literacy. As Eva Gates, she is the author of the national bestselling Lighthouse Library cozy series from Penguin. Find Vicki at www.vickidelany.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/evagatesauthor/

Mario Acevedo

Mario Acevedo is the author of the Felix Gomez detective-vampire series. His short fiction is included in the anthologies, You Don’t Have A Clue: Latino Mystery Stories for Teens and Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery, and in Modern Drunkard Magazine. Mario lives with a dog in Denver, CO. His website is marioacevedo.com.